The first computers

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of the word “computer” was in 1613 in a book called The Yong Mans Gleanings by English writer Richard Braithwait:

“I haue read the truest computer of Times, and the best Arithmetician that euer breathed, and he reduceth thy dayes into a short num∣ber: The daies of Man are threescore and ten.”

This usage of the term referred to a person who carried out calculations or computations. The word continued with the same meaning until the middle of the 20th century. From the end of the 19th century the word began to take on its more familiar meaning, a machine that carries out computations. Like the one you’re using right now…